Automotive – 1947 Project

Everybody Has to Fall Some Time

Luther Green headline

February 4, 1927
Los Angeles

A police dragnet is closing in on the killers of Luther H. Green. A member of the Los Angeles Stock Exchange, Green was slain outside of his home at 1053 Bonnie Brae, as he attempted to thwart the hijacking of his $10,000 [$120,710.34 current dollars] stash of pre-prohibition booze. He was able to fire a single shot from his rifle before being mortally wounded by the burglers.

According to Chief of Detectives Cline, six men have been implicated in the aborted liquor heist. It is believed that the ringleader of the failed raid may be the notorious crook, Harry “Mile-Away” Thomas. Mile-Away’s mouthpiece, Attorney S.S. Hahn, told cops that he had conferred with his client and, “…he was not only a mile away this time, but sixteen miles away”. Harry and several of his confederates would soon be arrested in connection with Green’s murder, but none of them would ever stand trial for the crime.

More than a decade prior to the invention of Teflon ®, the often busted but rarely convicted non-stick felon would be released on the charges stemming from the Green killing. His lucky streak would end on the evening of April 21, 1927. Harry would be caught in a sting and gunned down by the law as he attempted to steal an expensive automobile from a private garage at 1408 West Thirty-Fifth Street.

Riddled with machine-gun bullets, buckshot, and slugs from police revolvers, Harry staggered from the garage and collapsed in the arms of a uniformed officer. Mile-Away’s last words before he succumbed to his injuries were “Everybody has to fall some time.”

Mysteries of the Road

accidents
January 19, 1927
Santa Monica, Venice

A drained, shamefaced whisky bottle and wrecked car were all officers found tonight at Colorado Blvd and Twenty-Third Street.

A thorough check of the hospitals and morgues revealed nothing further.

In nearby Venice, at Washington and Brooks, an ambulance was summoned when excited folk in the vicinity witnessed an auto turn turtle. In true 1920s fashion, the two young male occupants righted the thing and drove off, presumably in a crazy zigzag with zany piano accompaniment.

News of the Day

December 22, 1927
Los Angeles

Let’s put up our feet and see what’s gone on in the world this day. Not much. The odd curiosity or two.
hemp
According to our concerned friends at the paper, it seems the Mexicans are making a menace of themselves, using flowers of the “hemp” plant as some sort of habit-forming drug (they’re such a resourceful people!). Apparently the Imperial Linen Products Company has blanketed the Imperial Valley with the stuff. Well, I’m sure the State will sort this one out to everybody’s satisfaction.

onelastcig Oh dear, here’s another fellow who just couldn’t resist a final cigarette. Seems J. B. Smith left the wife at his Glendale home and checked into the LaViolette Hotel on North Maclay in San Fernando. He brought with him a stack of goodbye letters indicating his fears about going mad, and a loaf of bread—not for snacking, but for soaking in water and wadding into the wafty windows and drafty doors (my hat off again to the resourcefulness of our Southlanders). Of course, no-one banks on the dang’d jets taking so long. Thankfully J. B. also brought along a pack of smokes to pass the time…the hole blown in the wall was six feet in diameter. J. B.’s smoldering remains lived long enough to say goodbye to his wife at the hospital, but not much longer than that.

ostrichman And oh my, it seems one of my favorite attractions of the stage, Sidney Barnes the Human Ostrich, has expired in New Orleans. After complaining of stomach pains, the Homo Struthio underwent an operation to remove a cigar box full of bolts, carpet tacks, razor blades, washers and nails from therein—Barnes did not emerge alive. Guess growing up to be a carnival side can be rough, kids!

mistakenidentity

And what do have we here…a Coroner’s inquest will be held at 1:30 today to determine whether Ralph McCoy, in City Jail on suspicion of robbery, actually hung himself in his cell or was killed by fellow prisoners—it seems McCoy bears (well, bore) a resemblance to one William Edward Hickman.

Oh yeah. Hickman. Some mention in the paper about him, too.

thanks foild

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auto

guns

Stars That Shine and Smolder

December 6, 1927
Los Angeles

Calling all cars! Calling all cars! Be on the lookout for two easily-recognized scofflaws, film stars Reginald Denny and Hedda Hopper. She’s wanted for speeding at about 34mph around Melrose and La Brea, he for setting a similar pace in the 20mph zone at Sunset and Vine, and without a valid operator’s license, on November 28.

But that’s not all! Denny is also wanted for questioning in the origins of the massive forest fire which began near his cabin near Running Springs Park in the San Bernardino Mountains two nights ago, and which hundreds of men are fighting, with 50 to 75 summer cabins already destroyed.

What shall we do with these antisocial celebrities? Perhaps we should just drop by their homes and have a talk with them. Miss Hopper is reported as residing at 1416 Fairfax Avenue, Mr. Denny at 2060 North Vine.

No Moment of Clarity This

November 17, 1927
Los Angeles
notdrunk
Charley Chase received a sentence of fifty days—suspended—from Judge Baird today, for while Chase admitted to taking a sip of whisky before crashing his auto into the back of a taxicab on Hollywood Boulevard last Monday morning, the magistrate judged Charley to be only reckless, not drunk.

longfliv! Chase is today best known for his work in promoting the exclamation-mark’d picture. Long before 1947, the year which saw two noir exclamation-mark’d masterpieces—Railroaded! and Boomerang!—and long before little girls screamed Them! and everyone shouted Oklahoma! and then we all yelled Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!, Chase starred in Nurse to You!, Okay Toots!, You Said a Hatful!, What a Bozo!, Skip the Maloo!, and of course ¡Huye, Faldas!, to name but a few. He also asked the cinematic questions Are Brunettes Safe? and Is Everybody Happy? and Isn’t Life Terrible? and What Price Goofy? and Is Marriage the Bunk? and Should Husbands Be Watched? and Why Go Home? and while these aren’t exactly What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? or Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (or What’s the Matter With Helen? or Who Ever Slew Auntie Roo? for that matter) they sure beat the stuffing out of Where’s Poppa? and What’s So Bad About Feeling Good?

Anyway. The judge should have thrown the book at Chase for his whisky-sippin’, because his alcoholism killed him at the age of 47, in 1940. But then, what was Judge Baird to do? Send Chase to meetings? Bill Wilson wouldn’t get hot flashes for another seven years.

High Times

high times headline

October 15, 1927 Hunter S Thompson
Los Angeles

When you can’t legally purchase a fifth of Jack Daniels, what can you do to get a buzz and have a little fun? Well, if you are Mr. Raymond Rice, 40, of 1935 Orchard Avenue, you will get higher than a kite by guzzling significant quantities of products loaded with ether such as hair tonic, shellac, and canned heat, and then you’ll go for a drive. Maybe the next time Raymond gets hammered on ether he’ll stay at home. Officers Meyers and McClellan spotted him blocking traffic with his automobile and cited him for being intoxicated.

Forty-five years from now gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson will say it best in his remarkable novel “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas”: “There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge.”

Together As One

July 7, 1927
Riverside

James Clark has but one leg. Fortunately his wife has another. Together, they make one fine two-legged person. Unfortunately, their capacity for imbibery allows for the drunkitude of four persons, their double vision providing the visual acuity of eight.

Seems the Clarks got a few in ‘em and, sans hollow leg and all, the booze went to their collective head, and they thought it a good idea to hop in a flivver and go tearing down Mission Boulevard here in Riverside. Despite the symbiosis that stems from years of wedded camaraderie, his stomping the gas while she pounded brake and clutch didn’t work out to their combined advantage…no, these tourists from the Lone Star state plowed into another vehicle driven by one Fred Stutzman of West Riverside.

Deputy Sheriff Scott hauled the intoxicated unipeds off to the hoosegow, and reported that while both autos were severely damaged, no-one was seriously injured. Scott certainly realized that had someone involved lost a limb, he would have had to fill out the separate irony paperwork, instead of just checking the irony box on his standard report form.

Lady drivers and presidential pets

June 8, 1927
Alhambra

Car dealer R.C. Kane thought he was about to close a sale, and perhaps was leaning back with an air of satisfaction when the would-be buyer, Mrs. R.N. Upton, became startled at an intersection as another car approached.

She went for the brake, but hit the gas, and the car careened into Judge F.W. Houser’s yard and smacked into a concrete post. Kane and Upton, in the front seats, both went through the windshield and were severely cut and lacerated. In the back, Kane’s wife went out the window, and like Dwight Lesley was cut and bruised. The car was wrecked: NO SALE!

The victims were sent to Alhambra Hospital for treatment—all save Mrs. Upton, who insisted on seeing a Christian Science practitioner.

Meanwhile, in Washington, D.C., President and Mrs. Coolidge’s pet raccoon Rebecca, a beloved pardon case from the White House larder one Thanksgiving, escaped and led staff on a two hour spree around the trees of the temporary White House, before climbing down and nonchalantly returning to her stump behind the residence. For more about the Coolidge’s interesting pets, see this article, with much on Rebecca towards the end.

A jerk and his siren are soon parted

May 24, 1927
Los Angeles

Whoo-Whoo! Get outta the road, here comes a cop, or an ambulance. Jeez, usually they drive better than that. This guy doesn’t give an inch. Muscling his way south through heavy Vermont Avenue traffic after midnight in his Essex, he pushes through the Third, Sixth and Seventh intersections with only some shattered nerves and shouted curses.

By this point he’s picked up a tail, Detective Lieutenant Vanaken riding with Auto Club man Harry Raymond, who wonder what the deuce this yutz thinks he’s doing, and if this could be the same siren-happy individual who’s been reported around town these past three weeks. And then at Wilshire, the inevitable sickening crash of metal on metal, leaving A.J. Hanker and cabbie Oscar Ruiz, thankfully uninjured, sitting in their wrecked cars as Vanaken forces the automotive bully to the curb a block south.

Inside, Dr. R.B. King, 25, X-ray technician out Alhambra way, who denies causing the accident, though he admits he used his siren while not on an official call. Well, since he’s a doctor, they book King on charges of failing to stop and render aid at an accident scene, and hold him in the City Jail. Meanwhile, we trust, police mechanics are cutting that siren off the Essex, and none to carefully, either.

Insert Lawyer Joke Here

May 19, 1927
Santa Ana

W. F. Linder is an unfortunate man. To begin with, he crashed his car. Into another car. Driven by a lawyer.

That other-car-drivin’ Los Angeles attorney, J. Irving McKenna, sued Linder for $12,000 ($142,542USD 2007) in damages. That was Wednesday. Today, two more damage suits were brought—seems passenger Mrs. Catherine McKenna is also a lawyer, and is counsel for her husband, who appears as her attorney; she demands $20,000 ($237,570USD 2007). Oh, yes, and Anna C. McKenna, another member of the family, is also demanding $20,000, and aforementioned Catherine is as well asking for $300 in medical expenses and $5000 in loss of earnings.

Drive carefully, folks.